


We Didn't Start The Fire

by ThreeBirds



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Arson, Attempt at Humor, Bad Cooking, Chaos, Cooking, Crack, Gen, Good Allison, Good Parent Allison Hargreeves, Good Sibling Allison Hargreeves, Hargreeves sibling shenanigans, Himbros Diego and klaus, I checked Google and it counts, Is arson still arson if it's mostly accidental?, JUST, No Incest, POV Klaus Hargreeves, Really really bad cooking, Sibling Bonding, accidental arson, also, salad making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeBirds/pseuds/ThreeBirds
Summary: Spoiler alert: yes they did
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	We Didn't Start The Fire

Klaus stared at the plastic bowl in his hands. It was orange, thin-rimmed, and so big he could probably sit in it. He looked back up at Allison, who was pointing a challenging stare at him with her hands folded. "Well?"

"Fine" he sighed. "We could try, I guess"

Allison looked pleased, if a bit surprised. "You heard him, Diego" she turned to the kitchen table, where diego was splayed on his back, with his head tipped over the edge.

All the blood rushing to his face made Diego's look of betrayal come off as more of a constipated squint. "traitor" he accused, but still flung himself up, walking to the counter. "What are we making?"

Allison sideyed him. "Salad."

"Just— just salad?" Klaus asked, relieved.

"It's not even a meal, i'm sure you can handle it, and we can't trust you with fire. Not after—" she caught their eyes meaningfully, "last time"

Klaus shivered. Last  _ times _ — plural— were three giant kitchen fires in the span of two weeks. Attempts at rice, cake and bacon. No matter who he or diego were paired with, it always ended in flames.

Diego had the courtesy to seem regretful as he walked over to the fridge, although he did mutter something awfully like "we're not children"

"What was that?" Allison, who was io her way out, pushed her head back through the door with a piercing sweetness.

"Nothing"

"That's exactly what I thought," she chirped.

When she left, Diego let out a defiant huff. "Soon they'll tell us we can't use a knife"

"Right?" Klaus jumped. "It's unfair. You accidentally start a fire three times—"

"Seven," Diego corrected him, offering a knife and a carrot.

Klaus took them. He completely forgot the rest of his sentence. " _ Seven? _ "

Sadly, no explanations came. He didn't push, since the last person you'd want to aggravate is a Diego wielding a knife. Instead he let the silence return to the room, only punctured by quiet chopping and slicing sounds of the vegetables, and occasionally the soft thump of the tiny squares landing in the bowl.

The silence was broken after what seemed like five minutes. It was Allison, voice worried but slightly mocking. "No fires yet?" She asked.

"How would we even burn leaves?" Klaus asked, but to her look added. "Nothing, of course"

Allison brought two fingers to her eyes and pointed them between Klaus and Diego. "Don't let that change" she warned, and it sounded like the second half of the sentence would have the word 'decapitate' in it.

"Seriously though, leaves can definitely burn" once she was gone again, Diego paused cutting. "Forest trees burn all the time"

Klaus nodded. "No way. They're too wet. All the tree sap turns if off. It's liquid"

"What about weed?" Offered Diego.

"It's all dried up, too" Klaus informed him. "All the tree water is gone"

"So you're saying if I hold a lighter to this chunk of lettuce it won't catch fire?"

Klaus had a strange feeling of menace that he couldn't quite pinpoint. He was pretty sure of it, but he was also pretty sure he could contain a fire on Sunday, right before the second oven was irreparably burnt. "Maybe start with one leaf? And, hmm." Klaus did a little show spin to demonstrate searching. "Some kind of barrier?"

"You got it" Diego grabbed the wooden cutting board and reached into one of the fake plants by the counter. He picked a few pebbles and began lining them up in a circle on the board. "Get the lighter— The red one. The blue one was ruined."

He didn't have to add "by me", it went without mention.

Were they tempting fate by using fire? Maybe if this time they contained it, the curse would leave.

"We're lifting the curse," Klaus noted as he gently pulled the car-shaped lighter out of the cabinet, careful not to press any button yet. When he looked up at Diego, he was staring at him in utter confusion. 

"What curse?"

"Nevermind. Do you want to do it?"

"Hell yeah. I want you to have a clear view as I win this bet"

Klaus let out a weak sound of protest. "When did this become a bet?"

Diego clicked the button a few times, watching the little dancing flame almost hypnotically. "Around when you said 'no' to my face" he said distractedly as he gently brought his hand closer to the lettuce leaf on the board. "Now watch"

Klaus was almost sure he knew what would happen, but he leaned forwards anyway. The fire held out by the wet leaf for a few moments before wetly sizzly out. Klaus waited a few moments to see if it caught on before straightening back. "Well then—" he started.

Diego fanned his hand at him, accidentally flicking Klaus's nose. "Wait wait, I need the fire to be at the base.  _ This time _ , look closely"

Before Klaus could protest—  _ they never specified second chances _ — Diego held the rekindled Lighter between the cutting board and the edge of the lettuce leaf. He let out a muffled cheer. "I see smoke"

"No way" Klaus butted his forehead into Diego's cheek to get closer, and sure enough— a little like of smoke was rising from the board. "Damn. I guess I was wrong."

They sat there, watching the wooden board, blowing on it gently until a spark started pulsing at the center of the black spot. Klaus watched the spark spread, almost proud, before he realised it was skipping around the piece of lettuce and straight around the cutting board.

"Diego," he said calmly.

"What?" Diego asked.

"Weren't we trying to light just the leaf?"

Diego's smile slowly faded. "Oh"

The calm mask was starting to slip off. "Yea" Klaus's voice broke. "So—"

"I lost the bet" he scowled, stepping away from the kitchen table. "Fuck"

Klaus stared at him in disbelief long enough for a smell of smoke to start spreading. He considered sacking Diego's neck, but knew that would lead to a physical fight that he would lose. Instead, he wordlessly pointed at the everg-rowing flame until Diego caught on. 

"Oh," he said again, somehow sounding less disappointed than last time. He added, "Oh no" to clarify.

"Water?" Klaus asked.

"Water." Agreed Diego, and they both went scrambling for a cup. By that point the fire started licking at the wooden table, too.

Now, the cooking oils were almost always kept in the corner closet of the kitchen, the one at the top. If it disappeared from it, Mom would try frying eggs using water, paint, or any other liquid in the house. It was one of the things they still couldn't quite fix for her, so they just left the oil in the same closet, always. There was no reason to assume it'd be anywhere else. Klaus had no reason to look out for it, because he knew it'd always be in the top corner closet, faraway from the table.

That is, of course, until the top corner closet had caught fire three days ago, and the oil was quickly dropped on the table, left there in the frenzy of trying to put out the flames.

It really wasn't their fault, he'd say to Allison later, a preface to the explanation as to why a giant puddle of burning olive oil was spreading on the kitchen floor, assisting the hungry flames in traveling onto every cabinet in the room. He'd be right, to a certain extent. But after watching Allison struggle to explain to ten firefighters how her two grown siblings managed to burn an entire kitchen over Lettuce, he couldn't bring himself to protest when she told them their sentence.

"Dish duty" she spat. "Until the next apocalypse"

**Author's Note:**

> I thank you most much, imladris_3, for hyping my confidence up over this. You are truly fam™ goals


End file.
